On Reddit the title is nearly the whole product. Nobody sees your post, they see a line of text in a list, and that line decides everything. Write 13 to 16 words that describe exactly what is in the post, in the subreddit's own words, with a number and the word I or you in it, and no question mark and no capitals. The tool below scores your title against every element that has actually been measured.
Interactive Reddit title scorer that grades a title against the measured elements
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How this score is worked out
The score starts at 50 and every element moves it up or down by the amount that element was measured to be worth. Nothing here is invented. The lengths come from a Stanford study of 132,307 Reddit image posts and from 1,000 posts on the Reddit front page. The pronouns, numbers, quotation marks, question marks, capitals and emotional wording come from a study of 86,035 pairs of Reddit posts that shared the same video within half an hour of each other, where one post got at least double the upvotes of the other. Everything is worked out in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Treat the number as a rough grade for the wording only. It reads words rather than meaning, so a title whose anger or humour sits in the facts will score lower than it deserves. It also cannot see your picture, your subreddit or your timing, and those matter more than the title does.
Copy the ten things that winning Reddit titles had, and ignore every other tip
The table counted 86,035 pairs of Reddit posts sharing the same video, where one post beat the other by at least double the upvotes.
| Element in the title⇅ | How often it appeared⇅ | Gap between winning and losing titles⇅ |
|---|---|---|
| Wording that leans positive or negative | 45.6% of winning titles against 41.1% of losing titles | +4.6 points, the largest gap measured |
| Wording that carries an opinion | 49.5% of winning titles against 45.0% of losing titles | +4.5 points, near enough the same as feeling |
| A pronoun such as I, my or you | 21.9% of winning titles against 19.0% of losing titles | +2.9 points, the best of the single words |
| A number | 36.9% of winning titles against 34.3% of losing titles | +2.6 points, and a third of titles already have one |
| Quotation marks | 4.0% of winning titles against 2.8% of losing titles | +1.1 points, worth using only if you are quoting |
| An emoji | 5.9% of winning titles against 5.1% of losing titles | +0.8 points, too small to plan around |
| An exclamation mark | 5.8% of winning titles against 5.1% of losing titles | +0.7 points, too small to plan around |
| A stretched word such as sooo | 2.1% of winning titles against 1.4% of losing titles | +0.6 points, too small to plan around |
| A question mark | 2.4% of winning titles against 3.5% of losing titles | -1.1 points, so questions cost you upvotes |
| A word written in capitals | 24.4% of winning titles against 25.7% of losing titles | -1.3 points, the worst element measured |
- Every gap in the table is under 5 percentage points, so no single word will rescue a post nobody wants to see.
- The ten elements stack, so a Reddit title carrying five of them beats one carrying a single element.
- Power words were worth a 5% lift in median upvotes on the Reddit front page, which is close to nothing.
Write 13 to 16 words, because short Reddit titles lose and longer ones win
Every guide tells you to keep a Reddit title short. Every measurement says the opposite, and the shortest titles are the only ones that were penalised outright.
- The average Reddit title is 10.3 words and 95% of all Reddit titles are under 23 words, so 13 to 16 words is long without being strange.
- Titles under four words are the one length the Stanford model penalised directly.
- The winning title in the 86,035 matched pairs used more words, longer words and a wider vocabulary than the losing one.
- Reddit front page titles of 13 to 17 words took a median 2,393 upvotes against 1,584 for titles of 6 to 8 words.
- Stop at 16 words, because that is where the Stanford study starts penalising length and the front page study still rewards it.
| Title length⇅ | Median upvotes on the Reddit front page⇅ | What to do⇅ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 words | 1,855 | Risky, and never go under four words |
| 6 to 8 words | 1,584 | Avoid, the weakest bracket measured |
| 9 to 12 words | 1,594 | Beatable, and where most Reddit titles sit |
| 13 to 17 words | 2,393 | Aim here, agreed by both studies |
| 18 or more words | 2,570 | Good but risky, since Stanford penalised over 16 |
The 1 to 5 word bracket beating the 6 to 8 word bracket looks wrong, and it probably is. That table counts one single day of posts on the Reddit front page, where the very short titles sit almost entirely on picture and meme subreddits whose content carries itself. The Stanford design held the picture still, and it found short titles lose.
Describe what is actually in the post, because vague titles lose to detailed ones
Length is not the point. Detail is the point, and extra words are just what detail costs. The strongest single measurement in the whole matched pair study was how descriptive the winning title was.
- Average word length separated winners from losers more strongly than any other measurement in the 86,035 pairs.
- The winning titles scored as more complex on every readability measure, because they carried more information.
- Nouns and adjectives moved a Reddit title's success more than verbs and adverbs did.
- 21% of Reddit posts sharing a YouTube video copy the video's title almost word for word.
- Rewriting the title you copied from the video is the easiest win on Reddit, because a fifth of your competition has not bothered.
Use Camera to Clipboard to get your Reddit photo onto your computer
A 16 word descriptive title is miserable to type on a phone, which is exactly why so many phone posts end up called "look at this". Camera to Clipboard, one of my own apps, moves the photo to the machine with the keyboard on it, so you can write the title properly.
- A photo taken on your phone lands in your computer's clipboard, so you paste it straight into the Reddit post box.
- Typing the title on a real keyboard is what makes 13 to 16 descriptive words bearable to write.
- The photo arrives in one tap, so you never email a picture to yourself again.
Delete the question mark and the capital letters, because both lose upvotes
These are the only two elements measured that make a Reddit title worse. Both are easy to remove and both are extremely common.
- A question mark appeared in 2.4% of winning Reddit titles against 3.5% of losing ones.
- Question titles took a median 1,615 upvotes on the Reddit front page against 1,934 for statements, which is 16% fewer. That front page comparison rests on only 64 question posts, so treat the size of it loosely and the direction firmly.
- A question asks the reader to do the work, and a statement gives them a reason to open the post.
- A word in capitals appeared in 24.4% of winning Reddit titles against 25.7% of losing ones, even after title length was accounted for.
- Capitals read as shouting or as spam, which is the opposite of the calm specific tone that wins on Reddit.
- Ask a question only where the subreddit exists for questions, such as r/AskReddit or r/explainlikeimfive.
Put a number and the word "I" or "you" in your title, because both win upvotes
These are the two cheapest changes on the list. Neither costs you a word you needed, and both were measured as gains.
- A pronoun such as I, my or you appeared in 21.9% of winning Reddit titles against 19.0% of losing ones, the biggest gain of any single word.
- A pronoun turns a caption into somebody's story, which is what Reddit rewards over an announcement.
- A number appeared in 36.9% of winning Reddit titles against 34.3% of losing ones.
- Numbers work because they are specific, so use the real figure rather than turning the post into a numbered list.
- Write "I spent 40 hours" rather than "I spent ages", because the second one tells the reader nothing they can picture.
Write with feeling, because a flat Reddit title loses to an angry or a funny one
The largest gap in the whole table is not a word or a mark. It is whether the title sounds like a person had a reaction to the thing they are posting.
- Wording that leans clearly positive or negative appeared in 45.6% of winning Reddit titles against 41.1% of losing ones.
- Wording that carries an opinion rather than a bare fact appeared in 49.5% of winning Reddit titles against 45.0% of losing ones.
- Winning Reddit titles were measurably less neutral, and neutral is the default setting of anyone writing carefully.
- Sadness and anger rose in the winning titles while joy fell, so the safe cheerful version is the wrong instinct.
- Say what you thought of the thing, because "my landlord charged me $400 for a light bulb" carries a reaction and "rental costs are rising" does not.
Use Repeat Recorder to turn your audio into a video Reddit accepts
A title is only half a Reddit post, and if the thing you are posting is a voice recording, Reddit will not take it at all. Repeat Recorder, another of my own apps, has a "Share as video" option that writes your recording out as an MP4 instead of an audio file, which is the one format Reddit will accept. The video is a still picture carrying the app's name with your audio playing over it, which is why that export costs nothing.
- Reddit has no audio post type, so a voice recording cannot be uploaded to it on its own.
- Most recording apps only export an audio file, which is exactly the format Reddit refuses.
- Repeat Recorder writes the MP4 in portrait, so the same file also works as a story or a status post.
Read the top 20 titles in the subreddit first, then write one nobody has used
A Reddit title has to do two things at once that pull against each other. It has to sound like it belongs in that subreddit, and it has to be something nobody there has read before.
- Every subreddit has a point where matching its usual wording stops helping and starts making your post look like something readers already scrolled past.
- r/atheism and r/gaming had no upper limit on matching, and the closer a title matched their usual wording the better it did.
- The same word helps in one subreddit and hurts in another, since pronouns, adverbs and determiners were strongly negative in r/atheism.
- Read the top 20 titles in the subreddit before you write yours, because that is the only way to learn its usual wording.
- Do not copy the title from the video or the article you are linking to, which is what 21% of Reddit posts do.
Turn your short caption into a full sentence about what actually happened
The first row is real. It is two of the 25 titles used for one image of a bear riding Abraham Lincoln, and the Stanford model rated the short one in the bottom 10% and the long one in the top 25%.
| What the post is⇅ | The title that loses⇅ | The title that wins⇅ | Measured elements added⇅ |
|---|---|---|---|
| A repost of a known image | No tittle needed. | I see your Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor and raise you a bear riding Abe Lincoln | 4, adding length, detail, a pronoun and a joke |
| A photo of a restoration | Look at this | My 1974 Volvo had 41 years of paint and I took it off by hand | 4, adding length, detail, two numbers and a pronoun |
| Asking the subreddit for help | Any advice? | I have three weeks to learn enough Excel to keep my job and I am lost | 5, and it drops the question mark |
| A sports clip | AMAZING GOAL!!! | The goalkeeper scores from his own box in the 96th minute and does not realise it | 5, and it drops the capitals |
| A family recipe | Dinner tonight | I cooked my grandmother's soup for the first time since she died and it tasted wrong | 4, adding length, detail, a pronoun and real feeling |
| A chart of house prices | Interesting data | Rent in Perth rose 74% in four years while wages there rose only 11% | 3, adding length, detail and two numbers |
| A complaint about a landlord | This is ridiculous | My landlord charged me $400 to replace a light bulb I had already replaced myself | 5, and the anger is in the facts |
| A link to somebody else's video | Great video | This is the clearest explanation of compound interest I have found in 12 years of looking | 5, and it stops copying the video's own title |
- Every winning title in the table says what is in the post, so a reader knows what they are opening.
- None of the winning titles uses a power word, a bracket or a hook, because none of those were measured to work on Reddit.
- The anger and the humour in the winning titles sit in the facts rather than in adjectives, which is why they read as a person and not as marketing.
Conclusion: how to write a Reddit title that gets upvotes, in one glance
Every line below was measured, and they are ordered by how much each one was worth. The percentage point figures are the gap between how often that element appeared in the winning Reddit title and the losing one, across 86,035 pairs of posts sharing the same video.
Do this
- Write with feeling rather than neutrally, the largest gap measured at 4.6 percentage points.
- Describe exactly what is in the post, which separated winners from losers more than anything else measured.
- Write 13 to 16 words.
- Put the word I, my or you in the title, worth 2.9 percentage points.
- Put a real number in the title, worth 2.6 percentage points.
- Read the top 20 titles in the subreddit before you write yours.
- Use quotation marks when you are actually quoting somebody, worth 1.1 percentage points.
Do not do this
- Do not write any word in capitals, which cost 1.3 percentage points and was the worst element measured.
- Do not end the title with a question mark unless the subreddit exists for questions.
- Do not write fewer than four words.
- Do not reuse a title that subreddit has already seen.
- Do not copy the title from the video or article you are linking to.
- Do not expect a good Reddit title to rescue a post nobody wanted to see.